


Homecoming

by rabidsamfan



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-28
Updated: 2010-03-28
Packaged: 2017-10-08 09:50:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/75440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabidsamfan/pseuds/rabidsamfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Watson goes off with Holmes, Mary must wait, but eventually he always comes home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homecoming

She read a book while she waited for him.

But her husband turned up nearer four in the morning than three, bright-eyed and bloody, and it was all that Mary Watson could do to just fold her arms and inquire about the safety of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

"Oh, he's all right," John Watson said airily. "We patched each other up at Scotland Yard. I left him there making Lestrade's life a misery while they wait to hear whether the two who got away from us are stopped before the borders."

"Patched each other up, did you?" She eyed the ruined sleeve on his left side and the pale turns of bandage within it askance before taking her husband by the other arm and leading him in the direction of the bath. "And did you happen to have an actual doctor take a look at that arm?"

"I _am_ an actual doctor," he reminded her with a lopsided smile, and began to tug her in the direction of the bedroom instead. His hands were trembling, still, with adrenaline and the tension of the chase. "Never mind the arm, dear. I poured a dram of cocaine over it – it won't hurt till morning."

"You should eat something," she offered, although she knew he would shake his head.

"I wouldn't be able to sleep," he said. "Please, Mary."

The very timbre of his voice told her how close she'd come to waking up a widow. It was something he needed, she knew, this dance to the edge of life and death, though it frightened him nearly as much as it did her. Most times the danger was an illusion. Careful planning by Holmes, or extra manpower from the Yard, kept John safe from more than a bruise or two. But something had gone wrong tonight, and John had gambled, "double or nothing" and he would never tell her how for all that she knew why.

How had he dealt with the arousal before they married? she wondered, as he pressed his mouth against hers and began to strip away her dressing gown. Had he taken himself off to the cribs of the East End, to brighten the life of some luckless woman there? Had he fought with pressures of the flesh alone, as he sometimes handled himself while watching her undress across a room? Or had he and Holmes had some third way, never to be discussed, to confirm to each other that they had both survived another night of treachery and ambush?

"Mary, Mary, Mary." John chanted her name like a talisman, and she stripped off his coat and waistcoat and eased the bloody shirt up over his head to reveal his other injuries. The pattern of bruises meant fists and sticks, the shallow scrape along his neck meant someone trying to strangle him, twisting the hard cellophane of his collar into the skin. It was none of it worse than the arm, thank goodness, and she kissed each bruise in turn, pausing only to allow him to draw her nightgown away.

His boots were in the way of getting off his trousers, and she told him as much, and broke away to turn down the covers and fetch the bruise balm that she kept among her cosmetics on the bureau. He laughed and sat on the edge of the bed, dealing with laces and stockings whilst never taking his eyes from her nakedness. She flirted her eyes at him, tilted her hips in invitation, and then laughed in her turn as he fumbled at his trouser buttons to bring his engorged prick into view.

The balm gave her an excuse to run her hands over his skin, to catalogue each injury, but tonight he was in too much of a hurry to allow it. Her hands were still slick with the stuff as he pinned her to the bed and began to nuzzle at her breasts. He twisted one hand in hers, and brought them both down to begin working between her legs. But she was used to this now – was nearly as excited as he when he came home like this – and she knew that she did not want to wait.

"Now, John," she told him.

He did not argue, but kissed her, and pressed himself inside her, and thumbed her nub of pleasure as he rocked in and out, until she shuddered with her orgasm and he followed her into glory before collapsing beside her on the bed, already lost to the conscious world.

And if he cried in his sleep before morning, she never said a word.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written to fill a prompt at the kinkmeme which wanted _Mary/Watson-comfort!sex with Mary tending to a wounded Watson._ Slightly revised from the post there.


End file.
